


Made of Memories

by cpacesowboyed



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, F/M, M/M, Mira HQ (Among Us), POV First Person, Polus (Among Us), The Skeld (Among Us), Two Impostors (Among Us), anyway this started out as a joke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:42:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26966125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cpacesowboyed/pseuds/cpacesowboyed
Summary: Black was sent to the Skeld for one reason and one reason only:To kill every single crewmember and discourage the rest of humanity from colonizing his planet.Kill, Vent, Accuse.Find a way to cope and live another day.He was doing just fine, but he didn't account for the arrival of White, and he certainly didn't account for a string of murders that he had absolutely nothing to do withThis is a story about love, loss, and figuring out what is really important in life.*updates when can*
Relationships: Black/White (Among Us), Blue & Red (Among Us), Crewmate/Impostor (Among Us), Pink/Yellow (Among Us)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 60





	1. PROLOUGE

One day, we will all die. It is a truth that we must come to terms with at sometime in our lives or another. Personally, I never believed my death would matter. Never believed that anyone would continue my story or even say my name long after I was gone. I suppose that in some odd way, this remains true. 

  
My name is Black. I was sent to kill these people, the members of the Skeld, using any means necessary. Despite my mission being what it was, I have only ever killed once, though in technical terms, that still makes me a cold, hard, killer. I was born on an unnamed planet in some far off galaxy where people said that I looked a lot like my mother. Her golden skin, the deep black pools of her eyes, her black curls, were all said to have passed down to me. The only thing I shared with my father was the mission we both took part in and our fates because of it.

  
Project CNZ001 was originally created to stop the colonization of our planet. See, my people lived in constant fear of the colonization of humans. We wanted no part in their wars or whatever else humans decided to dedicate their time to, but their ships grew nearer and nearer and we were pushed into a corner. My planet considered themselves a rather peaceful one, but you cannot back an animal into a corner and expect it not to fight back. Not that we considered ourselves animals of any sort, but perhaps the Project did turn us into something adjacent to it. Strange, that to avoid becoming what we feared, we were tricked into becoming that very thing ourselves. 

  
I was a boy when the scientists first extracted the parasite. It was this blue-black thing that lived in the very depths of our planet. They thought that if they could fuse the parasite with a host, it would give the host inhuman abilities. Not long after, they gathered test subjects and began the procedure. My father was among these subjects. For the longest time, I hated my father. He didn't even say goodbye to us. I understood, years later, that this was because he thought he was coming back. He was a foolish man. We'd gone months without hearing from him. Mom was forced to pick up a job to support us. I spent my days in the house finding whatever I could to entertain myself. It had only been a couple of years since dad had left. I was nine and had moved from toys to books, finding myself captivated in the worlds others had so expertly crafted for me. The day I had finally gotten news of my father is my clearest memory.

  
Me, sitting on the grassy lawn, the smell of rain overhead. It did not rain here much, maybe once or twice a year, so I knew that today was going to be a good day. I loved the rain more than anything. Mom yelled at me through our open door, and the smell of vegetables, meat, and freshly baked bread drifted from the small kitchen. We were not the rich in any context, but we still had a hot meal every night, and if we couldn’t afford one then the neighbors were happy to help out. The people of my planet were like that. 

My toes dug into the grass and I stared up at the sky, desperate to catch sight of the first raindrop. The clouds were fat, and it would be happening any moment now, so I closed my book to avoid any water damage. I stared and I stared and I stared, and that was when a man wearing some traditional garb entered through our front gate.  
He asked me if this was the residence of my father, and I told him that it was, but he was not at home. That, possibly, he would not be for a long time. Without question, he handed me a letter, offered his condolences, and left. I tore open the letter the only way a nine year old boy knew how to open letters. Savagely. I had almost ripped up the contents inside

It only took me a few seconds to read the entirety of that letter, and those few seconds were the ones that impacted me the most, the ones that changed my life forever. My father was dead, the letter claimed. Our planet thanks him for his contribution to the experiment and my mother and I would be rewarded a small amount as compensation for our loss. Also, it asked, would we please pick up whatever was left of his body within the next week?

The first drop of rain fell.

I felt sick. I hated the man, but I also loved him fiercely. He was my _father_ and he was _dead_.

That night, my mother wept as she held me in her arms. She loved him just as much as I did even if she did say his name like it was a curse. What was his name? I don't remember. What I do remember is what had sparked in me. I didn't cry because I was too busy being burned from the inside out. I let it consume me. We picked up my fathers body, the pyre still burned. We buried him with his parents who had died before I was born, the pyre still burned. It took years for me to realize what this was inside of me. I only realized when I had come across that advertisement on a simmering summer day during my nineteenth year. 

I did not want revenge on the parasites for what they had done. I wanted revenge on the humans for forcing us to even have to consider parasites in the first place.

  
This is an old story. You've heard it before but listen, because now it is my turn to tell it.


	2. Chapter One

There is no good way this can end. 

My life was quiet. I thought I would live alone until the day that I died and that I would be content with that. Not because I actually was but because it was the way I thought it had to be. Whether I was isolated from my peers was because of something I’d done wrong-some social cue I’d missed or an odd thing about me that I had never noticed-I never knew. I was so alone, but in time I came to like it. The silence that came with solitude was said to drive some mad but I found that it gave me a sense of clarity. 

I wasn’t lonely in any sense of the word-my mother was with me, though she was at work even more, and I had my books with me-so I don’t know what came over me when I saw that poster. It advertised the need for test subjects for the resurgence of Project CNZ001, though now it was renamed Project:RE09. I mulled it over in my head, making a mental pros and cons list. In the end, there were more pros than cons. That same night, when she had returned home from an overly long shift in the workshops, I told my mother about my decision.

She stopped the fork halfway to her mouth, “No.” She said.

“But it’s my choice,” I told her. “Think about the money we’d get just for me being a subject. And if it succeeds? Mom, you’d never have to work another day in your life!” I was eighteen. I was young and even dumb. I didn't know I thing about what the hell I was walking into. 

“You’re not going. That’s final.” She was angry when she said it and I knew what she wanted to say without her continuing. That my father had done and thought the same thing nine years prior. 

We ate the rest of our supper in silence. I was sick of my fathers poor choices dictating my life, so that night I packed my bag, put whatever money I had saved up on my mom’s dresser along with a note explaining why and where I had gone, and left to the testing facility. She'd wake up and read it. Probably, she would cry. I would become nothing but a ghost to her now. People would ask her about her son the same way they'd asked her about her husband and watch her go through her grief all over again. I broke my heart that I was doing this to her, but I tried to convince myself that it was for the best. What else was I to do with my life? 

It was the middle of the night the next day when I had finally gotten there. The journey itself had taken two separate buses and a hike to the facility and by the time I got there I was hungry, tired, and beginning to question my choice. Again, it was for the best. 

I was such a hypocrite, I realized then. I condemned my father for doing the same thing I was doing now but it was too late to even think about turning back now. I did not think I could bear the look on my mothers face if I went back home. The anger and fights that might ensue. The thought of me leaving her as she was, knowing she loved me rather than risking turning back and confirming that she no longer did was the only thing keeping me in front of those big glass doors. 

I stepped through them, a gust of cool air hitting my face. There were chairs bolted to the walls, a receptionist desk in the center of the room, and people in pale blue and white scrubs moving from room to room in a coordinated mess. 

I walked to the receptionist table, up to a man with dusty blond hair. "Hello," I said.

Nonplussed, he looked up at me. I got the feeling that I wasn't worth his time. 

"I'm here to sign up for the Project." I continued, pulling the flier out of my bag. 

He pulled out a sheet of paper that was already overflowing with names, some I recognized from my early days of school, some I'd never heard of before.  Signing my name to the volunteer sheet cemented my choice and I knew with more surety than I had ever known anything before that there was no going back. After I had put down my own name the man gave me a folder full of paperwork and pointed toward the chairs.

They had wanted to know all kinds of things. Blood type? AB negative. Height? Six feet and three inches. Reason for signing up? I hesitated before writing down some bullshit answer about wanting to bring honor and safety to my planet. Finally, they ended with a question asking if I acknowledged the fact that this surgery is untested and if it goes well, I will be expected to attend boot camp and ship out months after completing my training. If the surgery failed my family would be compensated for my sacrifice to scientific improvement. I wondered if my father signed something like this. He probably had. Quickly, before I could get the gall to talk myself out of it, I scribbled my signature down on the dotted line, turned in the paperwork, and was directed toward a dorm room.

The next days were littered with medical tests, psychological placements, and various other things that have since then become one giant blur in my mind. Finally, on the fourth day of my being there, sixth of my running away from home, a doctor entered with news. They looked very smart in their lab coat. They held a clipboard with a thin stack of papers on it. They asked me if I was who my papers claimed I was and I told them that I was. 

“You’re cleared for surgery. It is scheduled for tomorrow at three in the afternoon. If the parasite is successfully merged with your body and mind you will then be expected-” they went on like this for a long time, talking about information that had been covered in multiple papers I’d been made to sign during previous days. “You’re very lucky, you know. Out of the thousands of subjects we’ve gotten only a couple passed the psychological and mental exam. We have a feeling those of your sort will respond particularly well to the merging.”

They pushed their glasses up on the bridge of their nose. “What do you mean?” I asked, sitting up.

“Well, the body and the mind must both be great for the humanity to remain inside of a person after the parasite begins to take over.” They explained. “Your body has to be physically able to handle it. Your mind must be mentally capable of letting another thing in otherwise you begin to go insane. You’re sanity, slowly slipping away as you lose yourself to the parasite and it overtakes you. Your body may remain but autonomy is no longer yours. We’ve tested members of both groups and recorded how they’ve responded. Really, it’s quite fascinating stuff.”

So I was a couple in a thousand. Still, the idea of me losing it and no longer having control of myself I found more terrifying than fascinating. Maybe they could say all this stuff because they were merely an observer of it all, not having to undergo it themselves. Like how you can't look away from gruesome details despite their ugliness. It was beautiful though, in a poetic sort of way. The mind decaying as well as the sense of the self.

Much of a surgery was a drowsy mess. I remember very little of it due to the fact that I was drugged throughout a majority of it. I recall waking up a couple of times but that is all. I thought I saw people from my life coming in and out of my hospital room before I realize that that was near impossible. The ghost of a boy I saw twice. He was all poofy, curly hair and dark skin. He wasn't real but that did not stop me from thinking that he was quite beautiful.

When I finally woke up with any clarity at all, I found that I was alone in a hospital bed with an IV sticking out of my arm. 

_ No.  _ Said a voice inside of my head. It sounded an awful lot like me, even though it wasn't. _Because I_ __’_ m here now too.  _

The surgery had been successful. I knew it before the doctors came in and told me. I’d never felt the anger that is said to make one capable of killing before, but now it was the only thing I could feel. The nurse delivered my lunch on a tray and it took all of my strength not to tackle him to the floor and rip his jugular out. He was wary around me. I wondered how many people had actually attempted something like the thoughts I had been thinking.

He handed me a bottle of pills in a plastic orange container. “For the thoughts.”

“Thank you.” I waited for him to leave before making any sudden movements. The riot in my head was too much at once. Strange, considering I was allegedly one of the ones who was supposed to be mentally capable of handling this. I could not even begin to imagine what the cacophony of chaos that was in my head at the moment must have felt like for those who were not as strong as me. 

I downed two oblong pills with a glass of water. Around five minutes later my head dulled to a sort of static feeling. It is hard to describe if you’ve never experienced it yourself.

Eventually I fell asleep, and when I woke up I had to pee. I stumbled to the bathroom, legs heavy and asleep. When I caught sight of myself in the mirror, I looked terrible. Almost sick. There were black spots under my eyes that would never go away, only fade in the time to come. I was skinny, as if I hadn’t eaten in a few days. I suppose that technically, I hadn't. The entire sight of me was tragic. Pulling up my hospital issued gown, I examined my chest. There was a fresh scar spanning from my sternum to my left pectoral. It was very ugly and yet I was proud of it. I had done something, I realized. By now I’d assumed that my mother had gotten her money for my participation and eventually, she would get monthly checks when I completed my training. The checks wouldn't stop until they had confirmed me dead. How they would do that, I was told the parasites were attached to tracking devises and when we-the subjects-died, so did the parasites and a little transmission would be sent to the project leaders. I had set her up for life, so why was I so sad? I took a deep breath and returned to my bed, desperate to escape everything I was thinking I drifted off again.

I was at boot camp with a few other people. Names and faces were forgotten, not because my mind is bad but because it was the intent of the project leaders to make us forget each other when we shipped out. But the many days spent in the field learning hand to hand combat and various knife tricks were not. There was this one boy who slept in the cot next to mine-he was very loud and boisterous and I would not remember him until it was too late, which is one of my many regrets- who was very good with a gun. He could disassemble and reassemble one within a matter of seconds. His aim was near perfect. Another character I'd come to regret not remembering was a girl who often sat next to me during lunches. She was of the quiet variety and skilled in various forms of combat. She struck me as quite foxlike. Nimble, quick, and incredibly intelligent.

I was not as naturally gifted at these things but I was physically strong and good with numbers. I liked working with large sums. There was something satisfying about the feeling you got after working for hours on a certain equation and coming out with the correct answer.

I think these two made my grueling days of learning the art of deception and war at least a bit tolerable. We were also required to get psychological assistance to learn how to handle the parasite. My mind was being torn to shreds again and again on a daily basis, and then being patched up only to be yet again destroyed. I went into this thing barely keeping myself together and came out with scars in my mind and on my body but I survived. I survived despite everything, and nothing can take that away from me.

Once we all passed through boot camp, I was glad to see that the spacecraft I was assigned to be sent to was the same one as the two individuals I had somewhat befriended during this entire experience. The three of us sat there in a tiny craft that was to navigate to the Skeld, me in the middle, the fox girl behind me, and the other boy in the front. Before we set off we were given shots. Shots that would make us forget everything that could link us to each other. This, they said, was a safety precaution. In case one of us got found out, this would ensure we could not possibly sell out the others. Had they thought our loyalty that feeble? 

The only friends I ever had had been ripped from me.

I arrived on the Skeld. I was given the color Black. It took weeks for my mind to defog and become clear-the drugs they'd given me were powerful-and my sedated state wore off to the point where I could comprehend things again.

Now that you understand the situation I was put in, I’ll continue at the actual starting point of my story. The part where I allowed emotion to take over. The part that fucked everything up.

I'd been on the Skeld for nearly a year at this point. I woke up from one of the many nightmares that had begun to occur around the same time I was recovering from my surgery. These nightmares of the dysphoric sort were almost always the same. Difficult to recall when I was awake, but always easily recollected upon being transported back into one. I always awoke from them with a sense of unease. My mind in pieces, I had to think back on what the therapist had advised me to do.

“My name is Black,” I told myself. “I am a member of the Skeld. I was sent here to exterminate the crewmembers and stop the colonization of my planet.” These truths were ones I hung onto in an attempt to keep myself sane. The tests said I had a strong mind but I was beginning to believe that the parasite itself was stronger. Still, I planned to outlast it for as long as I could even if it was. “I am a member of the Skeld.” I held myself tight. This wasn’t a truth so much as it was what the other’s believed to be true. So really, it was some sort of twisted lie that I tricked myself into believing as well. This last part was cold and shiny, like all painful truths were. “I was sent here to exterminate the crewmembers and stop the colonization of my planet.”

Time in space was an odd thing and I didn’t believe that it actually did exist at all, but the Skeld still ran on a strict schedule. My clock pointed to a time that said that the ship would be awake within the next hour or so, so it would be useless for me to try to go back to sleep.

I pulled myself from under my sheets. Sometime during the night, I had broken out into a cold sweat, which was the third time this week. I decided that I needed a could shower to shake away whatever had come over me, and made my way to the communal bathroom at the end of the dorm wing, towel and soap in hand. I stood under the spray of the faucet for as long as I could stand the icy chill of the water and turned it off only when I could no longer feel my toes. This monotonous schedule of mine has been the same for months and I would have grown tired of it if not for my isolation and boredom being the default. This didn’t keep me from longing for something interesting to happen around here. The last thing that had an impact was the death of Lime. 

He was killed a couple of months ago-or murdered if you prefer, but murdered makes him sound human and making him human adds a new level of morbidity to the entire situation-and as a result, Orange was kicked off. It had been eerily quiet ever since. This made sense considering one simple fact about the way the parasite functioned. Death was its instinct. How it killed didn’t matter but it’s preference was of the carnivorous kind. Of course, like all things it had limits. When it ate flesh there was a cool down that ensued until it could eat again. It could range anywhere from a couple of days to entire weeks at a time depending on what parasite you got stuck with. But this cool down did not stop the constant craving of blood. Though I myself have yet to kill, I still feel the cravings. It is endless and disgusts me but I am settled by the reminder that I am here for a reason. For a cause.

The mirror was possibly the most dreaded part of my morning routine. The face of my mother was still very present on my own, even after all these years. I tied my hair into a bun and began to examine my features. I thought that if I stared long enough that I could see her again. It never worked but day after day I made an attempt. I gazed at her freckles. In her eyes. I even smiled a bit and yet again, the entire attempt had been made in vain. The one thing that was my own were the circles under my eyes that had faded but remained present. I wished I had taken a picture of her with me or something else to remember her by, but all I had was myself. 

I was beginning to drift off into this false mirror world of sorrow when I heard the sounds of life all around me. Footsteps, groggy morning voices, people waking up. I was still a little damp when I pulled on a tank top and my black space suit, tying the top half around my waist, eager to leave before others could walk in on me and try to start a conversation. I glanced in the mirror one last time before beginning my trek to the cafeteria just as Purple and their crew walked into the showers.

Nearly an hour later, Pink, with her own jumpsuit hanging off her shoulders, threatening to slide off, yawned and took a sip from her mug as she walked to the front of the room. At some point in time, she had become the official-unofficial captain of the Skeld. 

This was odd because we never really needed anyone direct us toward our tasks. Usually at the beginning of each week we all got a task sheet that we had to complete by the end of the week and the cycle would repeat unless there was some sort of interruption. Yet, in times of emergency, it was Pink that we all found ourselves rushing to. 

“Listen up,” crewmates piqued up at the sound of her voice howling over the cafeteria. Some annoyed, others curious. Again, technically it was early. “We have a new crewmate arriving today and someone needs to show him around which means that someone needs to double up on tasks today. Any takers?”

Yellow, being the saint that she was, spoke up. “I’m willing to double up on tasks for today.”

“Great! Anyone willing to give a grand tour of the ship? Anyone? Literally anyone at all?” 

Everyone began to talk amongst themselves, making arrangements and counter-arguments. Somehow the victims had been narrowed down to Red and I. At once, the crew turned to look at me and in a way of response, I looked at Red. I certainly did not want to be left alone with fresh meat.

Red slung his arm around Blue’s shoulder and said: “Sorry babe,” he made a big dramatic show of kissing Blue on the cheek. It was impossible to tell if he was just being obnoxious for laughs or if he was just doing it to see the way Blue’s face reddened. Pushing a lock of ginger hair that had fallen in front of his face away he smiled brightly. “Blue and I have a date with samples.”

They all turned back to me. Resistance was futile.

As soon as we all finished our breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, I handed my task sheet over to Yellow. I liked Yellow. She had this dark coily hair and dimples and she always smiled when you walked into a room like your arrival was the greatest thing to ever happen.

“Oh, you’re in Weapons?” She asked.

“Yeah. Usually I am.”

She waited a moment and I found this silence between us awkward. Eventually she said: “Don’t I need a keycard to get into there?”

“Right.” I had completely forgotten that certain rooms required certain cards that our ID’s didn’t grant entrance to. “Sorry. Sorry.” I said, handing her the Weapons card. All she did was chuckle and leave. Pink replaced her, rewarding me with a clipboard with loads of paperwork I was to fill out attached to it and a pen that was hanging on to the clipboard via string. 

“I’m supposed to be the mean, scary one on the ship.”

“You still are,” She gestured for me to follow her. I knew she was working in Security all this week. Somehow we’d become friends despite having absolutely nothing in common but since I was lacking in the department of relationships-not that I saw her in a romantic way. I knew she had something going on with Yellow and frankly girls didn’t interest me in the slightest. The two of us were always more brother and sister if anything-I wasn’t about to complain or question my standing with her. “It’s just now you have to be mean, scary, and welcoming to whoever shows up today. He’s some kid from the MIRA HQ, can you believe that?”

“If he’s from the MIRA why is he coming here? Aren’t they supposed to be like...I don’t know...for the best and most advanced astronauts?” I asked.

Pink reached into her pocket, producing a keycard bearing her ID barcode on it. She held it over the scanner and waited for the green flash that would grant us access into the room. “What?” She asked, “MIRA HQ members are too good to slum it with us Skelders?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” We stepped into the room and she began to boot up the computers. “It’s just strange, isn’t it? Also, it’s kind of a downgrade.”

“It’s just a transfer.”

"From the MIRA," I said, I had a nagging feeling that there was a lot more to the story than that. “Pink.”

“Black.”

I stood my ground, completely content to wait until I got the truth.

“Fine.” She sighed. “You win, you win. He had an incident with a couple other of the members on board. Things got physical and instead of firing the dudes who ganged up on him, they’re sending him over.”

“I-ganged up on him?”

“Some dumb bullshit, I don’t have all of the details.” She began typing on the keyboard.

“Damn.” I felt bad for the transfer. The odds were against him and instead of justice he got a demotion. “Damn.” I repeated.

“Will you go wait by the entrance dock now? I’ve got work to do.”

Though I knew I hadn't gotten the full story, I was happy that I had gotten as much as I had. I sat in a chair attached to the wall in the entrance dock, my suit completely zipped up, and helmet on. Any minute now, the doors would open and he would float in from MIRA HQ. 

The ranking of ships is us, the Skeld, The Polus, and the MIRA HQ in ascending order. Going from the highest rank to the lowest rank in a fight that was probably not his fault was, to put it simply, completely fucked up. To keep my mind from straying to dark places while I waited I found myself going to what the fight could possibly have been over. Parasites, maybe? Ships had caught on to them quite fast but there was no possible parasite related thing that would warrant a transfer instead of a death. I became acutely aware of the fact that he would have no one here. That he would be alone and if I could not contain myself, he would die. If not by my hand, then by someone elses. 

This is the sort of spiraling pattern my mind always went to, ending in blood. I shook it away and began to count as high as I could. Numbers could not possibly end in blood. I was at about one thousand and seventy two when the alarm blared, announcing the opening of the doors. They unlatched and I strapped myself into the chair to avoid being sucked out into space. A lot was happening in that moment and little did I know-that moment when he came tumbling in, clumsy like a cat without it’s whiskers, scrabbling for any sort of support until I managed to get the doors closed by pressing a button on a control panel by the chairs-my life was about to change.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. Chapter Two

The moment he removed his helmet I was struck with an uncanny yet familiar feeling. Deja vu of a sort, like I had lived a moment like this many times before. He drew himself to his feet and removed his helmet revealing a cloud of the whitest hair I had ever seen. 

“Hey! Hello! Hi!” He dusted an invisible patch of dirt off of his grey temporary suit before reaching a hand out to shake mine. It hung suspended in the air as I just stared at him. Eventually he pulled his hand back. “You’re the greeting party?”

His face to the clipboard, pretending to be way more interested in any potential food allergies than in him. “Yes. You were...White? On the MIRA, I mean.”

On the rare occasion that I did speak, it was often with tact and purpose. Everything coming out of my mouth now was a jumble of what I could only describe as word vomit.

“On the Mira, yes. But there shouldn’t be any problems? They wouldn’t have transferred me over here if you already had a White.”

“No, we don’t have a White.” I confirmed. “We don't have a lot of colors here actually. I don’t think we even count as a full ship. For as long as I’ve been here we’ve been...White-less.” I flipped through a couple of sheets of paper, pulled out the one that was supposed to be filled out with all of his personal and medical information, and after clipping it to the top, I handed the clipboard over to him. “You’ll have to fill this out.”

“Huh,” He began to write, the scribble of the pen filling the silence. “White-less?”

“I don’t know why I said that.”

“But you said it.”

“Because I’m nervous,” I explained.

“Why would you be nervous? I can’t remember if I’m five foot seven or five foot eight.”

I chuckled. I was a good ten inches taller than him either way. “Is there much of a difference?”

“For your information, there is. I’m putting down eight. WHat’s HQ gonna do? I’m in space. Anyway, why would you be nervous?”

“People typically aren’t my thing.” I told him. He finished filling out the medical information sheet and handed the clipboard back to me.

“And your thing is typically?”

“Not people. Okay, this is great.” I said, looking down at the sheet which stated that he had a peanut allergy. “I have to give you a tour now. And get your uniform.”

“Your thing is deflection, then.”

“Pretty much.” I turned to walk into a tiny hallway off the side of the entry dock. It was where we kept spare uniforms and other things we had no idea what to do with. 

It was a dim hallway, the perfect place for a murder to happen. The place a murder has, in fact, happened. I didn’t like to go through it much. It was where we found Orange's body, all rearranged, guts spilling out all over the dirty tile. Stepping over miscellaneous items, I could smell the lemon lysol and the ghost of the rusty smell of Orange’s blood made my thoughts race.

_ Remember how much you wanted to lick it up? _ The parasite asked.  _ Like a dog. Pathetic. _

_ That was you.  _ I reminded it.

_ What’s the difference? _

For some reason, I thought that when we reached the spot the body was found, it would still be there. But it wasn’t. It had been cleaned up and sent out hours after we found it. Still, I had a feeling that Orange still haunts this ship.

“Okay so, this hall isn’t spooky at all.” His footsteps echoed behind me. I had half a mind to tell him what had gone down here. Instead, I offered him a shrug. The sound of the air conditioning kicked on and he jumped, clinging onto my back.

“What?” I asked.

His arms were wrapped around my chest and he cleared his throat. “What? I was keeping you safe in case of...I’m not going to be able to get out of this one, am I?”

“Nope.” I scanned my ID card over Costumes-it was one of the rooms that everyone had access to so it required no special keycard-he was still clinging to me by the time we stepped into the room and the door had closed.

The costumes room was covered in dust. He sneezed, headbutting my back. “Sorry, sorry, I-” He sneezed again.

I had to restrain myself from laughing. “You know you could just...I don’t know. Let go?”

“But what if some ghost tries to take you? You need me here to protect you, obviously.”

Oh.

_ Oh, I love this kid. We should keep him around for a while, don’t you think?  _

I thought,  _ Shut up _

_ But you  _ want  _ to keep him around.  _

“Shut up.” 

He released me and took a couple of steps back. “Woah. Sorry. I didn’t mean to-”

Shit. “No! No not you not-” I could not explain this without sounding insane. “Not you.”

“I get it.” He said. “I cross the line sometimes.”

I began to reach for his hand but stopped when I realized it could be weird. “There are...ghosts here. But I wasn’t telling you to shut up. My brain sometimes just…” I made a gesture at my head.

“You get frazzled sometimes. I get it. And hey, this ship has a history and I should have been more sensitive about it.” He offered me a weak smile. “Should we go find a suit? This grey one is pretty itchy and between you and me, I don’t really think that grey is my color.”

All of the uniforms on hangers turned out to be useless, but there were plenty of boxes full of old discarded uniforms we hadn’t gone through yet. Around the third or fourth box though, I began to question our stock. There was a red on which was his size but it was red. I picked up a yellow one. It turned out to be completely wrong in every aspect and even had a hole torn in at the knee. That was possibly a safety hazard. 

“This is a lot more work than I thought it would be…” White rolled back from a crouch onto his back, letting his hands fall over his eyes.

“Yeah well,” I pulled tape off of another boxed and tossed it into a tiny pile of already torn tape. “We don’t get tailored suits like they do on the MIRA.”

“Fuck the MIRA.”

“Fuck the MIRA.” I agreed. “Wait…”

He propped himself up onto his elbows. “What? Did you find something?”

“No. I know why I hate the MIRA but why do you?”

“Probably for the same reason as you.”

“Doubtful.”

“Oh yeah? Why do you hate them then?”

Because they're the closest to taking planet’s resources and destroying our people as a whole would have been the truthful answer. I lied, though. “Because I can.”

“Because you can. See? I can too.”

“Yeah but the members of the MIRA didn’t kick my ass.”

He stared at me, incredulously for a second before regaining composure. “Okay, first of all, they did not kick my ass. I gave them a good fight. I am very strong.”

“Sure,” I agreed. Just because he was short did not mean he was small. When it came to width, he was almost twice my size. I chalked that up to muscle. 

“Second,” He continued, “I don’t think you even have access to that sort of information.”

“Really, I shouldn’t.”

“So how’d you get it?”

I shrugged. I wasn’t going to sell out Pink just because I couldn’t keep myself from being nosy. 

“Do you  _ want  _ to know why they picked a fight with me?”

I shrugged again, busying myself with the uniforms. “If you don’t want to tell me then you don’t have to.”

“Maybe I will. One day.”

“One day then.”

Then, I pulled out a White uniform that looked like it would work. I balled it up and tossed it at him. It hit him in the face. 

“Hey!”

“Get changed.” My knees made a popping sound when I stood up. “We still have to do the tour.” 

He zipped his grey jumpsuit to the bottom, stepped out of it, and kicked it off to the side. Before I could turn around I already got a full glimpse at what was under the suit. I was right, it was muscle. There were also bruises trailing up his arms and healing scars. This all felt very intimate. 

“All you do is stare.” He said.

He pulled the zipper to the white uniform to the top and jumped a couple of times to get himself adjusted. “Oh. Sorry.” I said.

“Still staring.” But I couldn’t help it. The white suit was in complete contrast to his dark skin and I couldn’t help but think that he was beautiful.

“I like it.”

“Nothing like they have on the MIRA?” I asked, completely giving up on not trying to smile. 

“Absolutely nothing like they have on the MIRA.”

I stuck my hand out for him to shake, all of my previous walls taken down. He looked a lot more familiar to me now that he wasn’t in the drab grey suit. White was fitting for him. He looked almost angelic. 

“Good. It’s nice to meet you White.” 

His hand met my own. He clasped our hands together and then pulled me into a hug. “You as well, Black.”

As we walked through the ship, he pointed at things and asked questions. I told him little anecdotes about the things that happened here and there. The tour of the first floor of the ship ended with Electrical; a small dim room on the south end of the ship. 

Swiping my ID over the scanner, I rubbed my hands over my eyes. “This is the wires room. If you get stuck here let me know, most people don’t like doing this electrical stuff on their own.”

_ You could close the doors. Kill him. Climb into the vents-they don't even bolt them down-and wait for some sorry ass to find him.  _

“Oh yeah?” He began to examine all the different wires. The colors-red, yellow, green, and blue-made no sense in my mind. They were said to be simple but they were a thing I could never make sense of. They were a grueling task to fake doing. Usually, when I got assigned to wires, I would drag Pink away from her tasks long enough for her to do them for me, that way they got done. “Why’s that?”

“It’s spooky down here.”

“Is it? Blue goes to…” He attached a blue wire to a separate blue wire.

“Do you like wires?” 

“A bit.”

“A bit.” I mocked and smiled when I saw the embarrassed look on his face. “Should I let Pink know? Technically we switch tasks every week or so but I know she tampers with the schedules so she can sit around in Security all day. She can assign you to wires if you’d prefer to work on them.”

“No, I don’t want to be a bother.”

“What? Are you scared? What happened to the guy who was supposed to protect me from ghosts, huh?”

He let out an incredulous laugh. “Scared? You can’t bully me into making you ask Pink for favors. I’m fine doing other tasks just like everyone else.”

“Well,” I said, “you know how dark and scary it is in this rank, old part of the ship. I think you should be scared.”

I was having too much fun. Sooner or later I was going to let something slip.

“Hm.” He hummed, still busy messing with wires. 

I just wanted him to look at me. “I hear it’s where the parasites go to hang out.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

“How’d you guess?” He still wasn’t looking at me. I don’t know what came over me. I’d like nothing more than to blame it on the parasite that was currently egging me on but I also thought it was just me finally letting myself lose control. They were, after all, one in the same.

I grabbed him by the wrist and flipped him so that he was facing me. Leaning in close I said, “You wanna beg for your life?”

“I-” He blushed and turned his face away from mine. “Shut up-stop laughing!” White grabbed my wrist with his free hand and used it to pry me off of him.

“Alright,” I was trying to catch my breath. “Alright, I’m sorry. I could come down here with you if you are scared though. It would be a good break from running back and forth taking out the garbage.”

“You’re not funny, you know that? You are the least funny person here.”

“How could that be possible? You haven’t met anyone else.”

“Trust me,” he finished tying the last two wires together and pushed the wall panel shut. “I can tell.”

I sighed, “Ah, you’re right. I’m the big scary mean one here.”

He leaned one shoulder against the wall and I mocked him, crossing my arms along with him. “I don’t believe that. You’re not mean or scary. Big, yes, but not scary or mean. Even when you have me pinned up against a wall and are threatening my life.”

“Which was a _ joke.” _ I clarified.

“I can’t quite figure you out, Black, and I’m usually really good at figuring people out. What the hell are you?”

“Probably an alien or something like that.” I told him. 

“Ha ha.” He said monotonously. Then, White looked me up and done, nodded, and turned away. “One day you’re going to make that joke to the wrong person and very bad things will happen.”

“You’ll just have to be around to stop them from happening, then.” For some reason, around White, I felt lighter. My thoughts were still jumbled, intrusive at times, but I managed to push them away and focus on the joy I felt just being around him. It was like being a kid again and not having a single worry. 

We climbed the staircase in tandem, his right leg moving with mine. Left with left. 

“We all sleep in dorms. Yours is-” I stopped in front of the door at the far end of the hall. “This one.”

“And where is yours?”

I pointed to the other end of the hall while unlocking the door with my ID.

“Ah,” he said. “That far?”

“That a problem?” I raised my eyebrow.

“What if a parasite comes for me in the middle of the night? How are you going to protect me? Oh, Black,” he put the back of his hand onto his forehead and leaned back a bit, closing his eyes. I could already tell that he and Red would get along. “My knight in shining armor.”

“This whole notion of us protecting each other is outrageous, you know?”

The door slid open and he followed me inside of his new room. “So you’ll probably meet the rest of the crewmembers during dinner tonight. We all usually split up into our own little cliques but if you need somewhere to sit there's always a spot next to me.”

“That’s generous,” he said. He brushed his thumb across a desk pushed against one of the walls and examined the dust on his fingers. 

“I mean that literally. If Pink is there then Yellow is too, but most of the time we sit opposite of each other. There is quite literally always a spot next to me.”

“Is it because you're big, bad, scary, ol’ mean Black?”

“I feel like you added some adjectives there.”

He plopped himself down on the mattress and a layer of dust flew up. Motes floated in the air and for a moment, it felt like time was suspended. The beds in all the rooms were the same. Built into the walls of the ships, a little human sized crevice that only served one purpose. This one has not served its purpose in a long time. He sneezed, “That’s because I did.”

“Oh.” I replied. I twirled the desk chair around and sat on it. “Then I renounce my invitation.”

“Let’s not be too hasty-”

“Too late, revoked. Go sit with Red. Actually, I thought about this earlier, you might like him.”

“Why’s that?”

“You’re both annoying. I don’t think I could handle the two of you in a room at the same time.”

He picked up the pillow that was on the bed and flung it at me. “You bastard!”

“Yeah, yeah,” I caught the pillow and flung it right back. “I’m a bastard. You’re annoying. We all have our quirks.”

“I’m not annoying. I’m…effervescent?”

“Yeah well,” I said, looking for an out. “Be effervescent on your own. I'll swing by and pick you up for dinner later on."

"See you," He waved.

I began to make my way to Security where I knew Pink would be. I wanted to talk to her about getting White’s tasks switched to Electrical and possibly having mine switched there as well despite what White told me about not wanting to be an inconvenience. 

“Pink?” I hooked my hand on the door frame and swung myself into Security. The light was off and I stumbled over nothing but the monitors were on, which cast a haunting light over the entire room. As I looked around I realized that no one was sitting at the overly large desk chair. “Hello?” 

Everything about this scene should have made me afraid but I was struck with an odd sense of calm. The monitors emitted a quiet buzz while the air conditions kicked on through a vent and filled the room with cold air. Shivering, I walked to the desk and sat down at the abandoned chair. It engulfed me but what shocked me was the fact that it was stiff, completely missing the warmth that it would have had if another person had been sitting in it.

I swiveled once. Twice. Three times and spun in a tiny circle. Normally, I did not like looking through the cameras but a wave of curiosity rolled over me. A tiny part of me thought that I might be able to grasp the appeal of whatever Pink saw in this room. It was almost mesmerizing, watching the day to day buzz as if it were something not going on around me, but something entirely alien, as if it had no effect on my actual life. Seconds became minutes and minutes became hours. 

I saw Purple chatting with Green, Cyan, and Brown. Purple said something to make Cyan blush. Brown burst out laughing, almost dropping the bag of garbage he was emptying from the cafeteria trash bin. Cyan then broke off into a separate hallway and Green pushed Brown into the wall causing him to actually drop the bag of garbage before rushing off to follow Cyan. In an attempt to follow them, I switched the camera over to the next room but instead of them, it was Red and Blue I saw. Red was in navigation, screaming something at Blue but Blue’s back was turned. He just kept screaming and screaming though. There were no microphones connected to any of the cameras so it was difficult for me to read his lips but through his shouts I saw that his teeth were sharp. Sharp and insidious and they filled me with awe rather than terror. 

Blue finally turned to face Red and pointed a finger into his chest. He was dangerously close to Red’s fangs. Then it hit me.

Neither of them was even supposed to be anywhere near Navigation. They were on samples today which was on the complete opposite side of the ship. I got the urge to rush toward Navigation and save him from whatever Red was planning. But instead I stayed in my seat, fixated on how Red seemed to cower under the weight of Blue’s words. I began to wonder if one of them was the other imposter, or possibly both of them. But the other imposter was female, wasn’t she? And Red and Blue were closer than two crewmates who were just friends ought to be judging by Red’s ostentatious displays of affection. If Red did have a parasite then it was some kind of long game he was playing at, dragging Blue in closer and closer, maybe it was to ensure that the situation was inescapable, Blue only realizing his demise until the last possible moment. Some twisted sort of death it would be, betrayed by one you trust. They kept drawing closer and closer, the space between them closing completely and then-

“Whatcha watching there?” An out of breath voice said. I turned and there was Pink, looking like she just hauled ass from across the shop. Her footsteps tapped against the steel as she made her way over to me and the screens, skipping a little as she always did when she walked. “Oh.”

“Oh?” I repeated.

She smiled and pointed to the screens. “Look. I believe some crewmates owe me favors.” 

“You’re telling me you bet on,” I flung my arms out in front of me. Red and Blue were  _ kissing _ . Blue’s hand tangled in Red’s shitty mullet. “Holy fucking shit-”

“That is exactly what I’m telling you, Black. Purple was all like ‘There’s something suspicious about how Red looks at Blue’ and blah blah blah,” she made a mouth with her hand and pretended it was Purple. “And then she brought up that thing. Remember that thing?”

I did not remember that thing. “You’re going to be more specific.” I told her.

“That..that-” Pink snapped her fingers together a couple of times before it struck her. “On Polus! The alien-parasite-monster thing that went around seducing crewmates and then killing them. They thought it was exactly like that.” 

“Oh yeah. That thing.” I still did not remember that thing but it seemed familiar. I thought that was where I, myself, had gotten the idea.

“Anyway,” she continued, crossing her right leg over her left. “I really don’t think that’s the case and when they told me about it it was a really fucked up time.”

“What was the time?”

“Orange. Lime. All that.”

Now there was something I remembered. After we had found Orange's body in the corridor we had decided that only thing could be done. We had decided to play god. We had decided to play god and Lime’s life was the price paid.

He did not deserve the fate we forced upon him. Stripping him of his colors like savages, we still had the humanity to allow him to say his final words which were not profound like most people would have you believe last words often are. He was crying to the point where anything that came out of his mouth was almost incomprehensible. Some blabbering about how it wasn't him and how we had to just believe him because he was busy manning the asteroids. No one actually saw him on asteroids though. So we sent him off the ship and I’ve been more careful since then, even if I haven’t actually done anything. If they were that rash to send a man to his death in a matter of hours over a vague suspicion and a lacking alibi, I wondered what they would do to me if I took even one step out of line.

“So what are they doing?” I asked, eager to change the subject.

“Kissing, obviously. Banging, maybe.” She guffawed.

“Obviously they’re kissing. I- _ banging? _ ”

“The ol’ shabangaroo. First, second, and third base, all the way to a homerun!”

“I already told you,” I glared at her, “I don’t understand sports references.” 

“But do you understand  _ chemistry _ ?” 

“Oh my god.” I sighed. Some part of me could not comprehend how one could become so vulnerable to trust themselves like that around another person like.. _.that._ “I meant like...are they official?”

“Looks pretty official to me.”

“Ah. Cool.”

“Cool? You jealous or something?”

“No!” I quickly said. I was changing subjects faster than I could think of them. “Where were you? The seat was cold when I came in.” 

“Fine fine, don’t answer my question, asshole. I was with Yellow.”

“Oh? So you just abandoned your post to hang out with Yellow?”

“Yup!” She confirmed. “And we did more than just hand out, by the way.” 

“Gross. Stop talking. Right now. I’m sorry I asked. I’ll never avoid your questions ever again, even if they are really stupid."

“It’s just-” She jumped from the desk and I could tell she was about to go on some tangent about how great Yellow was. She’d done it before and I did not doubt that she would not hesitate to do it once again. 

As she went on and on, a blaring alarm went off, saving me from this torture. I had no idea what a treat I was in for when the lights flashed red and a voice rang throughout our intercoms. It was Brown, voice shaky and panting.

“Pink-Pink can you hear me?” Brown was stuttering a great deal, struggling to get his words out.

Pink picked up her radio and calmly replied, “Yes, I can hear you. What’s going on? Why have you rung the emergency alarm?”

In this moment it was easy to see how she’d become a natural captain to this ship.

“We found a body.” Brown said.

  
  
  



	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i really forgot that this fic existed-

“What?” Pink asked incredulously. My head began to swim. I was jumping from one outcome to the next but no matter what happened, one thing was certain: someone was going to be ejected. “Where are you?”

“I just walked into Weapons with Purple and he was...what the-” There was shuffling over the communicator and then I heard the muffled screams of who I assumed to be Purple. One of them retched before Brown came back onto the communicator. “Oh god, oh god- Pink, we can't do this again.”

“And we won’t. Calm down and tell me what you’re seeing right now.”

“Green is shoved into the fucking vent. Cyan's insides are on the outside.” Purple interrupted.

“I’ll call a meeting, okay?” She made a vague gesture with her hand and began to take off down the hall, no doubt to the cafeteria to press the alarm button. We passed the staircase to the second story when it hit me; White was still in his room and no amount of MIRA HQ training could have possibly prepared him for the drills we had here. I hadn’t had the time to teach the different signals to him. 

I abandoned Pink and began to climb the stairs, two steps at a time in an attempt to reach him and make sure that he was okay. I doubted that the imposter would have killed thrice. In facts, it seemed preposterous that they killed twice in such a short amount of time but it had happened and I wasn’t about to leave his fate up to luck.

When I had reached his door, I found him lounging on the bed, arm covering his eyes. He jolted up when I slammed into the side of the bed, searching for any injuries on him. “Where have you been?” I asked frantically. 

He pushed me away, “A little handsy there, aren’t we?”

I just stood there, staring at him.

“No, I’m not hurt. Hey-” White took my face in his hands and that was when I realized that I was shaking. “What’s going on?”

“We have to get down to the cafeteria.” 

“Why?” 

“I can’t tell you yet.”

His expression hardened, “Then I won’t go.”

“Please, just-” but I didn’t need to finish my sentence. The emergency meeting alarm began to blare and I grabbed his hand, removing it from my face. I tugged him off of the bed and began to run out of the room. Wordlessly, he followed.

By the time we arrived, the big round table that sat in the middle of the cafeteria was already full of bodies. We sat down, him to my right and Pink to my left. My heart raced. 

_ Someone will die today,  _ I thought.  _ Please don’t let it be me. _

Then, I was dredged out of the darkness by the press of White’s thigh against mine. 

“White,” Yellow said, “It’s nice to meet you, though I’m sorry it couldn’t be under better circumstances.”  
“Speaking of circumstance.” Red piped in. “Does anyone wanna explain why Brown over there looks like absolute shit?”

Pink glared at him but he only had a smile to offer. It was clear that the gravity of the situation had not hit him yet. It was even clearer that he didn’t intend to start caring any time soon. 

“Because Cyan is dead. And so is Brown.”

The grin disappeared. Oh, he probably felt like an asshole now, and he deserved to. “What?” He asked.

“In Weapons.”

“That...that’s impossible. We would have…” He trailed off as he looked at Blue who just shrugged.

“We would have heard it. We were in Navigation.”

Purple snapped their head up, furious. “I thought you were on samples today?”

“We were.” He said it so matter-of-factly. Red crossed his arms in front of his chest and leaned into Blue a bit. “We finished early. Decided to stargaze. The point is we would have heard it. Should have.”

“But you didn’t!”  
They weren’t the only people in the area they were not supposed to be in. What a complicated web of lies we all had managed to spin. “Probably because you were shouting at each other.” I said.

“How the hell could you know that?”

“He was with me in security. We saw you fighting and then sucking face.”

Blue blushed when this revelation came out but Red only fired back. “And you just left the new recruit alone?”

This was the first time he had spoken in front of everyone. I felt him tense beside me. “What are you trying to say?”

“I think you know.”

“No, I really don’t.” He was challenging Red. I knew that they were probably made of the same ferocious and dangerous thing: pride. “Enlighten me.”

“It’s just suspicious, is all. I mean, we throw Orange out and it’s fairly quiet. Sure, there are little scuffles in the hall. Fights between crewmates.” His eyes flickered to Purple and then back again. Everyone knew that they didn’t always get along but at the end of the day, no one got hurt in a way that was fatal. “But then you show up and BAM!” He slammed his fists in the table causing Blue, Brown, and Yellow to jump. “Two of my crewmates-my friends-are dead.”

He began to speak but I was faster. “It wasn’t him.”

“But you weren’t with him, were you?”

“No, I-”

How could I defend him? There was no concrete evidence that he wasn’t a killer but something wasn’t making sense. There were too many holes in everyones stories. At this point we were just throwing up accusations. 

“Then you don’t know where or what he was doing. Blue was with me. Pink with Black. Brown with Purple. And I hardly believe that Yellow could kill anyone.” 

The lies in Pink and my alibis were only serving to hurt White more than help. If Pink said she was with Yellow instead of in Security then Yellow would be clear from suspicion but for some reason I could not understand, she never spoke of it. If Pink wasn’t going to bring it up then neither was I. I was curious with how she was going to play this.

“But it was a double murder, Red.”

“And?”

“How the hell would someone who barely knows the layout of the ship manage that?”

“I-”

Yellow spoke up. “What were you two fighting about?”

“What?” Blue asked.

“That’s none of your business.”

“You two really had no right being anywhere near navigation. It’s odd that you, with so much evidence working against you, has the confidence to accuse anyone of anything. And isn't it likely that there were two murderers instead of just the one?” Her voice remained calm as her gaze pierced straight through red. “I don’t think it’s very fair to welcome White to the ship like this.”

The table went quiet. 

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Fine then.” Red snapped. “No one can trust anyone, then. Right?”

Purple looked at Brown, still shaking. They nodded and the rest of the table followed along.

“So we pair up. No one leaves the other persons sight and if something else happens then we’ll know who it is.”

Pink swallowed. “That works but-”

“If there are two of those parasites on board then we’ll know who it was depending on the report and who died. It’s not a perfect plan but it’s the only one I’ve got right now and it’s the best one we have.” He glared at Yellow. “Does that work?”

“I’m fine with it.” She confirmed, reaching for Pink's hand. They joined and I watched as Yellow rubbed her thumb in circles on the fleshy outside of Pink’s hand. 

Brown spoke up. “I want to be with Purple.”

“Then Black goes with White.”

We sorted ourselves out. Red was right. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was the only one we had right now. I was relieved that no one had been ejected today but I knew that sooner or later, someone had to get sent out. The day wasn’t nearly over when Pink concluded the meeting. Her, Yellow, Blue and Red were being sent to investigate and clean up the bodies. If they were anything like what Brown had told us over the radio, I counted myself lucky that I didn’t have to see them. 

The rest of us were to walk back to the dorms and try to shake away the day. I was all shaken up, but not nearly as much as Brown was. Before I could entire my room, he stopped in front of me. 

“What’s up?” I asked. I had no idea how to talk to him. Whenever we were put on a task together or even in the same room alone, I found myself wishing for nothing more than a way out. 

“I thought that Orange was the only one…” I pitied him. There was so much fear in his eyes that I was helpless not to.

Awkwardly, I put my hand on his hair. “You’ll be fine, Brown. I promise. Just stay with Purple and be careful, yeah?” 

He nodded and walked away. He was foolish to believe that there would only be one. Even more foolish to believe a single thing that was coming out of my mouth. When had I gotten so good at the art of deceit?

I was lying in my bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking. Always thinking. My thoughts were an inescapable thing and I hated them more than anything else. 

_ This is going to get fun. _ Not me.

_ You could join in on it. _ Also not me.

_ You- _ a knock came. I had been lying there for what I thought was minutes but what had turned out to be hours. At some point, I had fallen asleep. Another rap of knocks completely roused me. I stood and made my way to the door.

When I opened it, I saw White, standing there with a pillow and a blanket. 

I stared at him. He stared back.

“Huh?” I wiped my face with my hand. 

He lifted the bedding up and said: “We’re paired up, remember?”

“So?” It came out harsher than I meant it to, but I was tired and still trying to shake off the parasites thoughts. Despite what it wanted, I would not be joining in any fun. I chalked this down to not wanting to be caught instead of the truth of it. I was afraid. Afraid to kill. Afraid to watch the light leave someone's eyes. I was always so goddamn afraid. 

“So, move over. Someone got to prove my innocence and I figure you’re as good a person to do that as any.”

I stepped aside. “Oh.”

Throwing down the pillow and blanket on top of my own, he plopped onto the bed. “Were you asleep?”

“I was.” I sat down on the mattress next to him. Looking around the room, I began to feel self conscious. No one really pried into my living quarters and I realized that I had a pile of dirty clothes accumulating on the floor. I pushed the pile of clothes under my desk with my foot. “You gonna steal my bed tonight?” I asked.

He laughed and I thought it was the best thing I had ever heard. “Nah, I’m not gonna steal your bed tonight.”

“Odd, because you’re currently lying in my bed. This feels an awful lot like stealing.”

“Hm,” He yawned and turned to face the wall, mumbling something.

“What?”

After a few seconds of waiting, he just lie there, unmoving. If he thought I was going to just let him take my bed after a couple of hours of him being here he was extremely wrong.

Pulling the covers back over myself, I realized that they were tight because someone was lying on them. When I pulled them back over my legs, only they only reached halfway around. No matter what though, I was not sleeping on the floor.

I reached over to turn off the lamp on the desk and settled back in. At the very least, I had a pillow. 

It was going to be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *gasp* and there was only one bed


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *hands u this cause I havent uploaded in about a month*

I was dreaming. 

The air around me felt oppressive and the grassy fields of my childhood home stretched on further than they did in the real world. There was a man, and I thought that I was calling his name but no sound came out of my mouth. What was his name? It was on the top of my tongue. 

He turned and I found myself looking into my own eyes. He was speaking as well, but it was like this field sucked all of the sound into oblivion. Even though neither of us moved, we were being drawn toward each other. An invisible string pulled taught until we were chest to chest. His arms wrapped around me. It was a wet feeling, warm and dark. It was like he was welcoming me home.

“Soon,” He whispered, and the world turned black. The field disappeared and was instead replaced with blood, dripping out of invisible vents. I felt like puking. A scream pierced throughout the room, and I finally woke up.

The sheets were covered in my own sweat, but even worse than that discomfort, I felt something heavy holding down my arm. I thought that maybe, the other parasite was here to kill me. That was stupid, though. Parasites couldn’t feast on or kill each other. They were like magnets in some aspects. North can’t connect to North and so on.

My heart slowed when I turned to see that the thing holding me down was White, and how could I ever be afraid of him? I’d known him for nearly a day and yet, I felt that I should be more afraid for him than actually of him.

Any attempt of pulling my arm from under him was futile. It wasn’t odd that we ended up pushed so close together. The bed was not small, but it obviously was not made to accommodate two grown men.

“White.” I whispered. When he didn’t stir I tried again. “White, for the love of God will you please wake up?”

He mumbled, “What do you want?” 

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Then go.”

“You’re lying on my arm, you idiot.” 

“You-” White sat up and used the heel of his hand to wipe drool from his mouth. His hair had flattened on the side that had been on my arm. “Ew, what the fuck?”

“What?”

White removed his tank top. “This is an alarming amount of sweat? You could have warned me about that.” 

“It was an accident,” I said, reaching up to pull on the overhead lamp. The light clicked on and filled the space around with a warm yellow light. Everything looked softer.

“Been there.”

“Yeah,” I found myself staring at his chest. The light revealed a pair of scars and was possessed to reach out and run my thumb over one of them. I watched him recoil and regretted this impulse immediately. 

I had plenty of scarring, myself, but just as it wasn’t anyone's place to look at mine, it wasn’t my place to look at or question his. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-” I turned my head away, embarrassed. 

“It’s fine.”

A new layer of awkwardness settled around us. 

“Are you going to ask what happened?”

“No,” I replied, “do you want me to?”

“No.” 

“Okay.”

Then, because he could not handle the silence, he began to ramble. 

“It was nothing bad. There used to be more.” He said. “And now there’s not, that’s all, I swear. I didn’t get into some awesome knife fight or some accident during basic training.”

“Oh.” I said, and then I understood. It was just as he said. There used to be more, and now there wasn’t. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have touched you without asking first.”

“Wait...that’s all?”

I was confused. “Should there be more?”

“People usually...I don’t know...freak out when I tell them.” I sat up and stretched, my vision went blurry for a couple of seconds as he continued. “I was even kicked out when I was younger because of it. I was homeless for a bit.”

“Well, kicking you out of my room obviously wasn’t my reaction.” I assured him. “We don’t have a name for it where I’m from, but I know plenty of people who’ve undergone gender reassignment surgery.” 

I knew I messed up when he asked, “Oh? And where are you from? It sounds like a dream.” He put his chin into his hands, waiting for my answer. I did not know many Earth colonies.

“I-” I struggled for a moment to come up with an answer. “A small country. You’ve probably never heard of it. It’s not on many maps.”

“Maybe we can visit one day, then. If we ever get back to Earth.”

This almost made me laugh. I wanted to tell him that if the mission went the way it was supposed to, he would never go back to Earth. I caught myself wanting to tell him a lot of things. It was an odd feeling, wanting to be known.

“Maybe. Would you even want to go back?” I asked.

“Of course I would. Wouldn’t you?”

“I’d love to go back home,” I said, running a thumb over my chest where my surgery scar was. “But I don’t think I could handle it. I didn’t really leave on a good note. No one would be on my side.” Actually, a lot of people would be. Just not the one person who actually mattered. I didn;t think she’d even want to look me in the eyes after I did what I did.

White bumped his shoulder against mine. “I’d be on your side.”

“Thanks. You trust me a lot, huh?”

“Well,” White sighed, “we sort of have to keep each other from dying, I’m kind of forced to trust you. Also, I feel like you’re the right kind of person to trust.”

“Don’t.” 

“Don’t, what?” 

I turned my back on him and sighed. “Don’t just hand out your trust like that. Trust should be something that is earned, not something given out of desperation.”

“You trust me, how is that any different?” White asked. I wished I could see the look on his face.

“You can’t possibly know that.”

“I can. I do.” White insisted.

I was definitely going to be sick. He trusted me and I was supposed to kill him. “How?”

“You fell asleep next to me, didn’t you?”

“That does not equate to trust.” A stabbing feeling struck through my chest. “That equates to me being tired enough to let my guard down.”

“Turn around.” I did not want my face to betray the false walls I was putting up between us. Despite myself, a large part of me did trust him. 

What was I, if not a liar? It had occurred to me that I was not always a liar, but I had become one the second I stepped onto this ship, and I never felt bad about it. 

“No.”

“Turn around.” He said again. “Please.”

After a moment of hesitation, I sighed and faced him.

His pinky was suspended in the space between and his eyes were piercing my own. They were like coffee, dark and bitter. He was none of things himself, somehow I already knew that. 

I think that everyone had dark things inside of them, but he was one of the few that chose not to let them show. This was perhaps the most intriguing part of him. A beacon of light in the darkness that was the Skeld.

“What is this?” I asked. White grabbed my hand and linked out pinkies together. 

“You’re going to promise me that when we get off this ship, we’re going to visit the place you were born.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Do you not want to go back home?”

I paused before answering. I did, I really did. “I promise.”

“Good.” He smiled, “Now, you said you needed to pee?

The trip to the bathroom was quick. The tile was cold against my bare feet and I was thankful for my return to the bed. While I was gone, White had stripped the sweat covered sheets and replaced them. He also had put his shirt back on.

I was too tired to argue about sleeping in the same bed again. Too tired to even think about the way we had woken up. As soon as my head hit the pillow again, I drifted off to sleep. 

No more nightmares came. 


End file.
